Book Review: All Our Trials - Prisons, Policing, and the Feminist Fight to End Violence

IMAGE: The cover of the book has a light gray background getting slightly darker around the edges. In the center of the book in large, capitalized, black letters is "ALL OUR TRIALS." Below that in smaller, brown, capitalized letters is "Prisons, policing, and the feminist fight to end violence. Below that in the same letters only black is the author's name- Emily L Thuma. Across the bottom of the cover are four raised fists shown from the elbows or mid forearms up. The fists are of different skin colors ranging from light to dark. Some of the arms have visible sleeves while one does not.

All Our Trials: Prisons, Policing, and the Feminist Fight to End Violence by Emily L. Thuma is a widely researched and meticulously organized catalogue of an important history. Many people who write about feminist movements of the 1970's and 80's focus on the big names in white, second wave feminist discourse. This book was a breath of fresh air in that it focused on and described in beautiful detail the feminist movements against violence that centered Black, Brown, and other POC women, working class and poor women, lesbian, trans, and queer women, Jewish women, and women abused in psychiatric settings (whether or not they dealt with mental illness.) 

It is obvious that Thuma put extensive time into researching material for the book. It is full of amazing fliers, photos, newsletter covers, and other graphics from various grassroots movements in defense of women. There were definitely some more well known names highlighted like those of the Combahee River Collective, but there was a ton I learned from this book. I read a lot of feminist literature and activist history and it was really exciting to learn in detail about so many people and organizations I had not previously heard of. Thuma packed a ton of information into a relatively small space making the book an efficient read.

Thuma's focus was on movements surrounding the oppression and anguish caused by the prison industrial complex. These included the criminalization of women defending themselves from male violence in many forms including intimate partner abuse, stranger assaults, women abused by the psychiatric system in prisons and other institutions, pathologizing and abuse of masculine and gender nonconforming women, abuse and discrimination of transgender women both in prisons and some feminist circles, the struggles between white dominant feminist groups and Black and other people of color feminist movements, the struggles with some lesbian separatist movements' expressions of white supremacy, and much more. The focus is on the is mainly on movements in and around the 70's and 80's give or take, but she uses some sections as well as the epilogue to tie in these struggles to more recent events (such as CeCe's McDonald's imprisonment for self defense against homophobic and transmisogynistic violence.) I could not help thinking of the saying (that I have heard worded many ways and am not sure who it should be attributed to) that, "Oppression doesn't go away, it just changes shape." Many of the things these movements were fighting back then, we are still fighting against today. That is not to say there was not progress. The immensely difficult and involved work these women did was life changing for countless prisoners and marginalized people.

Thuma takes the reader into the intimate details and individual struggles that went on inside these movements. We learn about what people did pre-internet to disseminate materials to prisoners that prisons did not want them to have. We learn how women on the outside gave support and an external voice to women on the inside. We learn about the discussions of race and racism and the need for educating white women about race and intersectional approaches to women's liberation. We learn that trans women have been struggling with the hatred from TERFs since at least the 70's despite being a regular fixture in feminist movements from the start. We learn about the dangers of all white juries judging Black and Brown women who are fighting for their lives. We learn about "Daddy tanks" where butch women and other gender nonconforming AFAB people were abused and isolated. We learn about how a mere hug or supportive touch on the shoulder between women in prison can be criminalized as homosexual activity. (This is something I can attest is still true in today's prisons as I had a penpal who told me about the same restriction in her prison. Even worse, they put women on sex offender registries for homosexual activity.) We learn that presenting oneself to a parole board using or imitating white cis femininity is the only way to be seen as exhibiting "good behavior." We learn how intersectional feminist movements navigated the inclusion of men oppressed by the racist prison system while also fighting against heinous male violence against women. We learn about the many differences between "carceral feminism" (which seeks to fight oppression with increased imprisonment and policing) and intersectional feminism which sought community alternatives to ineffective and abusive prison systems. We learn about the criminalization of survival itself and the endless fights that women endured to keep their sisters alive and safe in the cruelest of institutions.

 What I truly appreciated about this book is that its approach was intersectional from start to finish. Thuma truly centered the voices that are often the least heard but most affected by these oppressive systems. She shows how lesbian, Black, Brown, Queer, Trans, Disabled, and other marginalized women have been leading the fight against policing of women's survival and of imprisonment of Black and Brown bodies in general. The book is well organized, well edited, and a fast and very informative read. I recommend this not only to people interested in activist histories, but to anyone who considers themself a feminist or who is fighting for any kind of liberation today. We can learn so much from these women who paved the way ahead for all of us.

This review was also posted to goodreads.